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Planning and Running Effective,
Efficient Practices
-By Dave Cross
Club season is upon us, and if you haven't already started your teams practices,
you will be soon. With that in
mind, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at planning and running efficient, effective practices.
This is even more important during club season than it is during the
school season simply because most club teams
don't practice as often as the typical varsity. And, if you factor
in the 3-4 hour practices, six days a week that most
high school programs put in during August, well, that's probably more than
even your most aggressive national
team in an elite club will be on the court.
Factor in that most club teams are starting nearly
from scratch in terms of team cohesion and familiarity with each other
on the court, and most club coaches have to cover a great deal more of material
than any varsity coach.
So, club coaches usually have less time, and more
to cover. This combination makes the planning and executing
of an effective and efficient practice very important to the teams overall learning and improvement during
the
course of the season.
What are the keys to running a quality practice
of this nature consistently? Let's
get to it:
1. Nothing I suggest here will
work as well as it can unless you come into practice with a positive, high
energy level yourself, coach. Take the time to get your "head"
where it needs to be before you get to
the gym - just as you expect your players to!
Make sure to keep a positive, upbeat tone of
voice as much
as possible. Be sure to praise your athletes
with positive feedback constantly. Also, use constructive
criticism - don't tell them they "did it wrong", but instead tell
them what they need to do the next attempt
to be successful. Finally, if you have to get on someone for lack of
effort or focus, do your best to catch
them doing something well as quickly as you can after that - and tell them
about it with excitement!
2. Write out a detailed plan: You
must take the time to write out what you want to accomplish in detail. This
may sound like no-brainer to many of you, but especially with younger, less
experienced coaches, it's not a
given. Make sure to include the amount of time
you are going to spend on each drill, and include little self-
reminders of the points of emphasis you want to focus on. I
know myself, if I don't do this, I'm gonna forget
something-it's just the way it is. You "veterans" out there remember
this: Experience does not equate with
memory! As many of us know all too well, many times they are
close to being opposites! :)
3. Design practice to be quick moving and involved:
a. You want to keep the kids energy and focus
up? Keep them moving and doing! Use drills that create a high
number of ball contacts for everyone with very limited "down time". Don't
know what drills to use? Search
the web, or ask your coaching colleagues or club director. There is simply NO EXCUSE for not having the drills
at hand to run the best practice you can! Heck, buy a drill
book or video if you have to!
b. This includes warmups! I highly recommend
you use a dynamic warmup, and if you've got time, throw in
a fun warmup game. Movement, laughter and smiles
raise energy levels and improve attitudes. You've got
to remember that your players have already put in a full day before they
get to you for a week night practice.
Sacrificing five mins. to get "their engines re-started"
will improve the quality of the rest of the practice.
c. Give water breaks every 15-20 mins. tops-but make them quick!
(For more on this, see my article here | ,
entitled "Managing Water Breaks Effectively".) Many people simply don't realize how quickly we start to
dehydrate, especially when we are active. And we all know how the focus
and effectiveness of an athlete
starts to dive when they start to dehydrate. Plus, giving them that
quick little "mental break" helps them
to refocus on the next concept to be covered.
d. Avoid beating a drill or concept "to death".
Sometimes a drill is just going to go bad. And if it is, how often
does prolonging it improve things? If you think about your own past
experiences, I think you'll agree it's not
very often-and the further down you let them get the harder it's going to
be to bring them back up again. Now,
don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that if a drill starts off
badly you quickly drop it and move on. No, your
players have to learn how to,and believe they can, dig themselves out of
a hole. But, if the hole keeps getting
deeper and deeper, then it may be better to throw them a "life-line" and
get them out of it before the whole
practice crashes and burns. Coaches: If they haven't
got it after ten minutes or so, move on. If you are using
timed drills for points, or something of this nature, three attempts at
reaching their goal is enough, move on.
One last thought on this: If you simply
feel you can't move on, for whatever reason, give them a quick water
break and get them back into it. Many times, that little mental break will give them time to refocus
and get it
in gear. (Plus my kids always know that if they get one of
these, they are real close to some running and their
focus and motivation gets and immediate boost! Ha Ha)
4. Use drills with goals: With the exception
of your standard hitting lines, every drill can be designed to
have a goal of some nature. Here are some examples:
a. Timed drills to a certain number.
b. Timed drills to score the highest. I always run these twice,
so that players that aren't going to usually
score the highest can compete against their own first score and try to beat
it. Plus, it pushes the top players
to keep pushing and raise their own score-even if their first one was already
the best in the drill.
c. Timed drills to reach the highest consecutive number. This
is a way of simply "mixing it up to keep things
fresh". Instead of, "You've got 45 seconds to reach X number of good
attempts", or "How many good attempts
can you get in a minute?", try "How many good attempts can you get in a
row in two minutes?"
d. Untimed drills to a certain number. For if you need them
to get a certain number of successful attempts, no
matter how long it takes. Just make sure to have something planned
for the first few to finish to jump into
so they aren't just standing around getting bored and losing focus.
e. Timed cooperative drills. These are drills where everyone
is working towards a cumulative common goal
in an allotted amount of time. For example, the standard "butterfly"
or "triangle" serve receive drill, with
a certain amount of points for every pass on a 3,2,1 scale, plus a point
for every good set and ace.
f. Team vs. team competitive drills. 3
on 3, 4 on 4, 6 on 6, it doesn't matter. I even use a "servers vs. receivers"
drill.
Note: Unless you are running an "untimed drill to a certain number",
always place a certain number of pushups,
crunches, etc. on every point lost by. This
rewards the players who finish very close but don't win (less exercises
than everyone else, except the winner), and motivates
everyone to push all the way through to the end, even if
they realize they aren't going to win the drill. Plus, if you
think about it, your weaker players are usually not as strong or fit as your
top kids, so it throws in a little extra conditioning for them in brief spurts.
5. Run simultaneous position-specific
drills: Obviously, the more court space you have available the easier
this is to do, but, if you are creative, you can get at least some of this
done every practice.
a. Setters/ passers, or setters/passers/blockers,
or passers/blockers if your setters need some work on their
defense-and most do! :)
b. Run your OSH's with one setter and the middles with the
other, (sure hope you at least have a backup), and
switch the setters half way through.
c. Run your hitters on one side of the net,
with your DS's digging on the other side.
6. Throw a
fun drill in between a couple of tough ones. Your team is only going to keep up a maximum level of
intensity and effort for so long before they hit a lull. Break
up the demanding drills with a fun, competitive
serving drill right before or after a water break. This gives them an "intensity break" before they take one
on their own at the wrong time! Ha!
7. Individual drills first, team drills last. Start out with
drills focusing on individual technique and progress to
team drills focusing on concepts and strategies.
a. It works real well to move from passing to digging to serve receive.
b. It also works well to move from "shadow footwork" hitting or blocking
drills to hitting lines with blockers.
c. With setters, move from technique and target drills to setting
live hitters.
d. For serving, five serves before every water break. Give them a target and take down two scores: Number
to
target, and number in bounds. Every once in awhile, switch
it up and go five serves coming out of a water break,
to simulate coming out of a time-out. Of course,
if you really need to focus on their target, short or jump serving,
then you need to give them a certain amount of time and move around helping
them with their technique.
e. Once in awhile, throw in a cooperative team drill right after
warmups. For example, 4's or 6's to a certain
number of points in a given amount of time. Points can be awarded
for just about everything: Good serves,
passes, digs, serve receives, blocks, block recovers, sets, saves,
kills (with bonus points), grunt kills (with
even more bonus points). This is especially effective
with more highly skilled/experienced teams, but can be
used at any level. If they are young enough that serving/serve receive
is still a real issue, go off a coaches toss.
Summary: It takes a well thought out plan to give your team
the best opportunity to the get the most out of
every practice. Is it always going to happen that way? Of course
not! Every team is going to have a "clunker"
at least once a season, if not two or three times - no matter what we do.
But the more time and effort we put into running
effective and efficient practices, the more times we are going to get them
out of our players!
Good luck this season, and if you have any questions, please feel free to
shoot me an email through the
"Contact Us" link below"!
-Dave Cross
National Director
Yes I Can Volleyball
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